Motorola Xoom Gets Closer to Completion with Flash

One of the Motorola Xoom’s missing pieces will fall into place with the arrival of Adobe Flash on March 18.

Adobe made the news official on its blog. Flash 10.2 will arrive alongside Android 3.0.1, an over-the-air software update that’s rolling out to Xoom tablets now. Adobe’s considering this a beta release for tablets, but the final version of Flash 10.2 is also available now on Android phones running versions 2.2 and 2.3.

The Xoom launched on February 24, becoming the first iPad competitor to run a proper tablet OS, Android Honeycomb. But one of the Xoom’s strongest bullet points, the ability to run Adobe Flash web content, was unavailable. At the time, Adobe said it was still optimizing Flash for tablets and would release the software in a few weeks. Looks like the company kept its word.

However, the Xoom is still missing a couple of promised features. The tablet’s MicroSD card slot requires a software patch that hasn’t arrived yet, and support for Verizon Wireless’ 4G network will require a free hardware upgrade sometime this quarter. To get it, users will have to send their Xooms back to Verizon.

There’s also the unpolished nature of Android Honeycomb, Google’s tablet-optimized operating system. Reviewers have complained of bugs, and the Android Market will be short on proper tablet apps for a while.

That’s probably why a lot of Xoom reviewers said to hold off on buying one and to see what other tablets arrive in the next few months. Incidentally, the iPad goes on sale today.